Required rank on all gear

[MariyaShidou]

I agree, i strongly dislike the optimal rank system, much more rewarding to feel you earned wearing something by working for it, like AF gear, each piece needed some extra effort to be able to wear it, when leveled high enough to wear it all, felt great and a nice accomplishment indeed. This system further kills the incentive of ranking up besides the other incentive killers in the game like mundane and redundant abilities.

SE needs to focus on incentive, progressive and goal oriented gameplay, this optimal rank system just like Armoury system is just way too free and loose that it kills any real sense of joy. Just really lame seeing any class rank 1 being able equip any class rank 50 gear. Put some restrictions for the love of Final Fantasy..

I vote make all gear rank required and less generic gear, more class/job based.

Grind grind grind to level up and wear gear is not sophisticated/accomplished at all. Try Anarchy Online system, you can wear most equipment/use most nanos any time, provide you meet the requirement (and if you don't meet the requirement but somehow still got it on beforehand, it won't be unequipped). Lvl restricted vs AO system is like comparing WoW to EVE.

[Gennosuke]

Grind grind grind to level up and wear gear is not sophisticated/accomplished at all. Try Anarchy Online system, you can wear most equipment/use most nanos any time, provide you meet the requirement (and if you don't meet the requirement but somehow still got it on beforehand, it won't be unequipped). Lvl restricted vs AO system is like comparing WoW to EVE.

Hmm, so what are you proposing exactly? I'm not familiar with Anarchy online but even in your example of AO, you say you can wear most gear/equip provided you meet requirements. That is precisely what i am talking about, in FFXIV, there are no requirements for wearing gear (save the new stuff coming through). Level based requirement is a logical and common used approach. How exactly is it not accomplished when the primary general focus of the game is ranking up? Is it not accomplished when you have to rank up to earn an ability? how is this any different? Personally i can't think of many other ways to restrict gear besides level and job based requirements, what other requirements do you speak of?
Enlighten me otherwise

[MariyaShidou]

Hmm, so what are you proposing exactly? I'm not familiar with Anarchy online but even in your example of AO, you say you can wear most gear/equip provided you meet requirements. That is precisely what i am talking about, in FFXIV, there are no requirements for wearing gear (save the new stuff coming through). Level based requirement is a logical and common used approach. How exactly is it not accomplished when the primary general focus of the game is ranking up? Is it not accomplished when you have to rank up to earn an ability? how is this any different? Personally i can't think of many other ways to restrict gear besides level and job based requirements, what other requirements do you speak of?
Enlighten me otherwise

Level requirement is a lazy and overly used concept. Old FFs never had it, not until FFXI.

Anarchy Online has a complex requirement. On the surface, it's the basic attribute/skill point requirement. For example Generic Body Armour quality 300 require 350 Strength and 350 Endurance to wear. A normal character is capped at 300 STR/END at say lvl 149 with slight variable between race, and can only reach 350 STR/END after they level up to 150+ (Limit break). On the other hand, there are many ways to get around base stat such as buff, implants, equipment, perk etc. and the result is that, a character as low as lvl 80 can wear that piece of gear. It's a very complex process to go through, because for instance buff has requirement (Nano Controlling Unit), if your NCU is not enough (not enough RAM!) for the buff, you can not take the buff, in addition that buff are mostly professional locked (Agent can get around that) and highest buff can also be only crafted from rare drop, not generic buy-in-shop. Implants that boost stat also has their stat/Treatment requirement to wear.

The concept of gear requirement in AO is too mind-blowing though to be explained by words >_>